Situation
The field of Information Technology (IT) has experienced rapid growth over the last few years, especially in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. One of our clients, a managed service provider of IT, was focused on delivering stellar computer service to their clients. While they were successful in fixing computer bugs, their HR processes weren’t as clear. The employee onboarding process was undefined, and management did not deliver consistent messaging to their team. In addition, employees were confused about company processes, as each member of management interpreted and communicated their policies differently.
Our client needed help to restructure their HR systems to maintain and increase employee retention while preparing for continued company growth.
Challenges
Since our client did not have a centralized office or location, they relied on email or messaging apps for communications to manage and share HR-related processes with their team. Our team spoke with their leadership team to understand their current processes, including, recruiting, salary, benefits, and conflict management policies. Management shared that, at times, they were unhappy with their employees’ work. Upon further review, we discovered that this was due to an employee-management communication barrier. We also noted that their HR methods were not consistently practiced, as they were inefficient and overly complex.
FocusHR’s main challenge was to help our client define and streamline their HR procedures. Once these policies were streamlined, we could tackle onboarding and company growth to help them achieve their goal to expand from 25 to 50 employees within five years.
Solutions
Holistically, this client needed a better way to organize their employee files. FocusHR took a systematic approach to this challenge and focused on communicating to management why HR processes are necessary and how their team could implement each process to ensure that management didn’t feel overwhelmed with these changes.
We started with simplifying our client’s onboarding process. One by one, we considered each process, ensuring that management could clearly articulate why the process existed and how to implement it. We then defined a process that could easily be followed, allowing their new employees to receive the right information at the right time.
From there, we collaborated to recreate their employee handbook, addressing potential issues that management may incur. Rather than focusing only on existing problems–such as employees asking for more vacation days than allotted–we trained our client to be forward-thinking to deal with challenges that could present in the future. This “talk about it before you need it” approach helped prepare our client for continued success.
Outcomes
After implementing these updated HR processes, including the onboarding and employee handbook methods, our client teams operated with more purpose. The entire company now communicates more effectively, allowing them to continue providing stellar service to their customers. Management was happier with their team’s quality of work, and employees felt like they were set up for success.
Bringing things full circle, our client’s goal was to double their workforce from 25 to 50 employees in five years, and FocusHR helped them shatter that. In just nine months, their workforce has nearly tripled! Our work with this client is ongoing, and we are collaborating to further streamline their HR processes to help increase their team’s efficiency and agility.
About FocusHR
FocusHR uncomplicates the people side of business by providing small business owners with outsourced HR, project HR, and Leadership Coaching. For more information, please contact us today! If you liked this post, please subscribe to our blog. You can opt out at any time. To learn more about FocusHR and for updates, please like our Facebook page and follow us on LinkedIn.